Leadership across the Pacific Ocean: a tri-national comparison

Mary Ann Von Glinow, Y. Paul Huo and Kevin Lowe

International Business Review, 1999, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: In spite of years of international management research that recognizes the crucial role played by culture, few researchers have studied how specific cultural characteristics may affect the ideal leadership styles as perceived by managers in different countries. This paper explores potential impacts of culture by examining the prevalent views of leadership in three countries that have intertwined economic interests across the Pacific Ocean: the United States, Japan, and Taiwan. These nations are similar enough in their economic systems yet differ significantly in many cultural dimensions. After identifying major attributes of desirable leadership styles in these three nations, we move ahead to trace their historical and cultural roots. Following an idiographic approach suggested by Teagarden and her colleagues, we have developed some propositions on the basis of both a literature review of the past cross-cultural research and a comparison of prevalent conceptions about leadership in three specific cultures. We argue that, although a multinational firm ought to maintain a certain degree of system-wide consistency in terms of its leadership style, the operational rules used overseas should be carefully blended into the local cultural context. Some feasible strategies that may help create a balance between globalization and localization are also discussed.

Keywords: Leadership; Asia-Pacific; region; Cross-cultural; comparison (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969593198000353
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:iburev:v:8:y:1999:i:1:p:1-15

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/133/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/133/bibliographic

Access Statistics for this article

International Business Review is currently edited by P. Ghauri

More articles in International Business Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().